Forrester Research says it’s also 50 times easier to get a site with a video to rank on Google’s first page than a standard website. Read on to learn about the key ways nonprofits can take advantage of the power of video marketing.

Raise awareness of your nonprofit

There are more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, according to the latest stats from the National Center for Charitable Statistics. These organizations and those abroad all compete for the generous donations of the world’s donors. So how do you make sure that your nonprofit’s voice is heard above the throng? Continue reading →

The multimedia consulting firm See3 Communications, NTEN and YouTube have announced that the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards for 2012. They’re accepting submissions through the end of February.

This year, winners have the chance to win one of four $3,500 prize donations along with great products worth an additional $3,500 provided by Cisco, free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference and a special prize to recognize fearless use of video, provided by theCase Foundation.

The winning videos will be announced at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco hosted by NTEN and featured on YouTube’s home page on April 5.

By now, most nonprofits understand the value of creating video to publicize their cause and connect with supporters. But, if you have little to no video editing experience or don’t have access to editing software, that can be a problem in creating a compelling and visually appealing video.

The YouTube Video Editor is a perfect solution. This feature describes how you can edit your YouTube video from within your browser and points out other editing features such as combining video clips, adding music, shortening clips and adding transitions.

Choose a video to edit2Point your browser to http://www.youtube.com/editor. Under the video camera icon on the left-hand side, you will see all of the videos you’ve uploaded to YouTube. They will be in chronological order. This area is known as the “Media Picker.” If you want to preview a video before selecting it for editing, mouse over the video and click the play button.

Add videos to your storyboard3Below the Media Picker is the Storyboard area. This is where you can drag and drop the videos that you want to edit. You can add up to seven videos to the Storyboard. YouTube has made a lot of changes lately, but this hasn’t changed.

Trim clips4To edit a clip, mouse over the video in the Storyboard and click on the scissors icon. The Edit Clip dialog box will open. You can trim (shorten) a video by selecting new starting and ending points. Drag the “trimmers” (gray bars) on either side of the clip to your desired starting and ending points and then click “Save.” You can preview your work at any time by hitting the Play button.

Tip! You cannot split a clip, so if you want to use different parts of the same clip, drag the video into the timeline multiple times and trim each clip down to the parts you want. Continue reading →

How to convey a powerful message with videos & photos

As regular readers know, I’ve been a longtime proponent of visual storytelling to advance the missions of nonprofits, cause organizations and businesses. (Heck, I co-founded Ourmedia.org before there was a YouTube.) People take action on behalf of a cause only when they feel an emotional connection, and yet nonprofits in particular are famously bad at telling their own stories.

What we tell people in our Socialbrite bootcamps and in our consulting work is this: Every nonprofit is now a media organization (the same goes for social enterprises and businesses). Never before have the tools of visual storytelling been so inexpensive, easy to use and accessible to the masses.

So why aren’t you taking advantage of visual storytelling yet? (Or are you? Tell us in the comments!)

There are dozens of ways to convey your story, and we’ve laid out lots of ways to get started — see the links at the bottom of this article.

Today we’d like to highlight a few best-of-breed examples of visual storytelling so that you can think about how to take a similar approach for your organization. At least one of the examples cited below should trigger an insight — an idea that resonates or an approach that you might consider using with your team or with a production partner.

Find people who encapsulate what your core objective is all about — and convey their stories with power, genuineness, passion and humility

Remember, it’s not about the tools or the technology. It’s about finding people who encapsulate what your core objective is all about — and conveying their stories with power, genuineness, passion and humility. Some can be elaborate productions, with narration, titling and musical score all working together. Others can be as simple as holding up a video-capable smartphone to capture a moment.

One you have a visual story, or several, that you can draw upon, you’ll be able to begin using it in your public outreach: on your website or blog, on your Facebook page, in your annual report, in your email newsletters. And don’t forget to enter contests like the DoGooder Awards, TechSoup Storytelling Challenge or CurrentTV’s just-ended The Current Cause, where $15,000 in prizes will be awarded.

The first place winner, Mountaintop Library Expands Horizons, by Room to Read (embedded above), took advantage of visually stunning photos taken in Nepal and weaved together a simple 60-second story about the San Francisco nonprofit’s global literacy mission. Nicely done — with no video at all. This is something your organization can do on its own, no? Continue reading →

This year winners will again have the chance to win one of four $2,500 grants provided by the Case Foundation, video cameras from Flip Video, a free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference provided by NTEN and more. The winning videos will be announced at next month’s Nonprofit Technology Conference and featured on YouTube’s home page in March.

For many nonprofit clients I worked with over the years, we’ve talked about the power of video. Video is a great way to share your mission, messages and goals. The medium educates, makes others aware of issues, progress that’s being made, and the work that still needs to be done. Awards like these recognize nonprofits that see the importance in video and inspire others to try telling their own stories.

Last year there were 750 entries, 17,000 votes by the public and 150,000 views. Wow, right? Now it’s your turn. Here are some details to get you started:

Submissions for Best Small, Medium and Large nonprofit organization videos must be a video that was made in 2010. Entries for the Best Thrifty Video category can be for videos made any time before the end of the submission period. Each nonprofit can submit as many videos as they would like. No specific categories or missions are needed. Continue reading →